


Mouthful of Feathers

by Hermit9



Category: Shadowrun
Genre: Animal Death, Bounty Hunters, Families of Choice, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Magic, Panic Attacks, Werewolves, homebrew game-breaking mecanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 09:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15794115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hermit9/pseuds/Hermit9
Summary: Warpath and Sin take Zan out to a Were gathering so she can hunt and embrace her animal side properly, for the first time.





	Mouthful of Feathers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MaverickWerewolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaverickWerewolf/gifts).



Leaving the city was weird. She’d been out of the Sprawl before, but it was usually in private chartered planes and via the cold white and blues of airstrips. She, also, had been incredibly medicated most of those times, and strapped to restraining devices. It wasn’t a good memory. Zan shifted in the dark box of the delivery van. Everything smelled faintly of bleach and rotten lettuce and sweat. Her left buttcheek was falling asleep, the ridges of the plastic crate digging into the flesh. Travelling sucked.

The light from her tablet was the only illumination in the space, and she tried to concentrate on it, moving numbers around, trying to make the budget predictions and the actual books play nice with each other. They were coming up short and shuffling would only delay the inevitable. She’d have to speak with Veronica, see if they could lower the food cost for a few weeks. That or stagger the pay for the girls, but she didn’t want to do that.

“One mile warning, then the signal jammers need to come out.” Warpath leaned over to look at the tablet. He was a solid mass of muscles on her flank, the cotton of his shirt the only thing with any give.

“Yeah, yeah, saving the works.” 

“How can you read something like that?” He picked the tablet from her hands and brought it to his face, squinting. “Going to ruin your eyes, such tiny scribbles.” 

“If you mess that up, I’m taking it from your pay, big guy.”

“Sure thing, Boss.” Warpath handed the tablet back to her, carefully, like he was afraid it would shatter. “What’s got you worried?” 

“Cash flow, mostly.” She powered down the tablet and put it in her bag, running her fingers over the zipper closure over and over. “The money will be there, just not at the right time. I guess I could delay paying the Italians, but I really don’t want to lean in too much on their leniency.” 

“No shop talk,” said Sin from the other side of the van. She opened an eye, glaring at them with exhausted amusement. “The point of a getaway is to disconnect and relax.”

“Well, I don’t like it.”

“It’s only for two days, Boss. Everything is fine. Garret is taking over security, Alexandre is taking over management and Ethel is running the girls. They know their jobs.”

“Two days? You said an evening! No one said two days! I didn’t pack for this. That’s a long time!” 

“I packed your bag.” Sin nudged the canvas rucksack with her toes. On her lap the pup shifted and snorted out a breath like a sigh. He was deeply asleep and dead to the world, paws hooked around his mother's torso. “Did it not feel too heavy for a night out?”

“No. It felt a bit light.” Zan crossed her arms around her knees. “Did he settle on a name for this week? Or are we back to calling him Wolf?” she asked, changing the subject. 

“He was loving Shade, but then…”

“But then he had a talk with Leash?”

“Worst. With Dyson. Who was so happy to introduce him to Shadow, the vanishing, fire-breathing puppy.”

“Might be a good cover, if he pretends to be one of hers…”

Sin shook her head, raising her lips to bare her fangs. Zan could see the superimposed Astral version of her, snarling and with her fur standing up. “No. That woman collects strays like others collect sports cards or bed notches. She will not have my son.”

“You should sleep, Boss,” said Warpath softly, trying to redirect the sudden tension. “We are still about 3 hours out.” He ran his hand over her back, making her realize how tense she was, as she hugged her knees to her chest on the rolling bumping steel trap. 

“But what if —”

“I will be awake. I have your back, no one will hurt you. And if I sleep I will wake up Sin.”

Zan tried to find an answer to that. A tension headache built at the back of her eyes, mixing with the anxiety of being away from home and the ungodly hour. “Fine,” she said at length.

She settled against Warpath’s side. He was always warm, and she could feel the ghost softness of his fur. He kept stroking her back until she relaxed and fell asleep. She wondered when exactly his scent had started to mean safety to her. It would hurt, when that was taken away.

A hand shaking her shoulder woke her up. Zan’s entire right leg was asleep now, promising the biting march of pins and needles when she moved. Drool had dried on the side of her face and her mouth felt like cotton balls.

“Boss, we’re here. Time to get out.” 

“Huuung,” she replied, eloquently. 

“Yes, I have your sunglasses.” Warpath waved them around her face until she grabbed the plastic frame and managed to push them into their proper place. “Come on, out we go.” 

She stumbled out of the van, sneezing twice as she was hit by the mid-morning light. The inhale caught her by surprise. The air was warm, but so clean. It felt a bit like the pure oxygen masks in the fancy yakuza bars, or being in a hyperbaric chamber. Zan wondered how long it took for oxygen toxicity to settle in under normal atmospheric pressure. The van had stopped at the edge of what looked like a park, with short grass and a few picnic tables to the side. The green of it was too sharp, too vivid, even through the tainted glasses. So were all the different shades of greens from the leaves and needles of the trees a bit beyond the grass. Everything was aggressively alive. 

The van’s tires crunched on the gravel of the lot, the electric motor silent, as it pulled away. Zan’s stomach dropped. She was really doing this. Hours from home with no way back. Blood rushing past her ears blocked all other sounds, masking everything in a rush of white noise. It was a really stupid plan. She hated it. She didn’t have any contingencies other than that rigger coming back to pick them up on his way back to the city, and other people's word that he was good for it. Zan took a step back, scanning over the people, the treeline, the wide open road behind her and looking for cover.

“Remember to breathe,” said Sin. She pressed a can into Zan’s hands and pulled the tab. The chemical reaction warmed up the soykaf with a hiss. Zan frowned. She hadn’t even registered Sin walking away from her, or coming back. 

“Smells weird.” 

“You could go and get introduced, you know? They’ll welcome you.” 

Zan drank half of the can in one gulp. Warpath was surrounded by others, for once not standing out like a sore thumb in the crowd. Many of the men were as tall as him, and even some of the women. They shared his golden ocre skin and long black hair. He was greeting each of them, clasping a hand behind their neck or on their shoulder and briefly touching their foreheads. Wolf wound through them, rubbing against legs and hips with his tail wagging furiously. As Zan watched, one of the elders knelt down, slowly and with assistance, to greet Wolf by pressing her forehead to his. 

“No,” she said as the elder got back to her feet. “I take too much from him… from you. This is yours.” She downed the rest of the soycaf. “I’m guessing littering would be a bad move?”

“There’s a garbage pail, in the cabin. You can put your bag in the locker there. Get changed.” Sin gave her a knowing look. “Take your time.” 

“Thanks.” 

The cabin was small, built in a sturdy fashion that would probably outlast a few generations. An older man sat by the door on a three legged stool. He nodded to Zan as she passed and she hurried by. He had kind eyes, and gray in his hair. But she could see the mass of him behind the human form, the claws the size of her skull and the skin thick enough that most gun fire would be an annoyance. She wasn’t overly surprised that security was handled by a bear-shifter, but she did idly wonder why it was needed at all. 

The interior was simple, paneled in birch wood and lit with stark white LED lamps for low energy consumption. The whole thing probably ran off the grid from photovoltaic cells on the roof. Rows of locker, each with their own handprint lock, filled most of the space, with benches in between. A simple bathroom occupied the corner of the cabin. Zan stuffed her bag in the locker and stripped down with barely a thought, only slowing when she removed her sunglasses. Nudity wasn’t an issue. She’d stood naked before panels and reviews of doctors. Not to mention that she ran a glorified brothel. One gets used to naked flesh. 

No what bothered her was the next step. She wished morphing into her animal self as as easy for her as for the others. Wolf, when he was allowed, could fall to his paws without breaking his stride. Zan dreaded it. In animal form she had no voice and no hands. No fingers to draw formulas, no tongue to recite spells and bend the world to her will. It made her vulnerable.

She could feel the tide pushing against her, in unrelenting pressure behind her eyes, squeezing her throat. There was no clock in the cabin, so she fumbled until she could grab her comlink. The signal was still cut, jammed most likely, but the time function worked. She set it for five minutes and sat on the bench. She let the tears come, cascading down her face without shame, making her nose run, heaving in ugly sobs. The timer chimed, a soft melody from a music box she’d picked ages ago. Zan wiped her face on her discarded shirt and took a last deep breath. Then she let go. 

Everything was always so damn tall. She shook out her fur, gathering the mass of her tail in from of her, examining the rich fire tones in the light. Maybe she could hide under the bench and be done. Zan considered the option for a few seconds before discarding it. Don't be prey. Don't act like prey. 

She scratched at the door and the bear-shifter opened it with a small smile. He didn’t say anything, but Zan saw the four or five people standing to the side and waiting for him to let them in. She nodded then skittered away, both grateful and mortified. She didn’t have time to consider just running away and disappearing before she got bowled over by a very happy Wolf.

“ _Come play with us!_ ”, he said, in that strange mind melding way that still startled Zan. She knew he wasn’t speaking, not really, but if she concentrated, she could see his lips move in his aura. She heard the voice in her head and it sounded exactly the same as when he was bipedal. Except happier, without the jaded affect he usually preferred. Zan rolled back to her paws and cocked her head. He was panting, low on his front paws, tail wagging furiously. “ _Come on. The little ones are about as bad at play wrestling as you are. It’ll be fun._ ” Behind him she could see the other pups playing in a pile of soft bites and fluff. Their paws and ears were too big for them and it was adorable. Wolf was a giant compared to them, lanky in pure teenage fashion but closer to fully grown. Not that Zan would ever admit to being able to see the difference. He was a good five years younger than her, which would always make him a kid.

“ _Ok! Ok! But you’re on my team,_ ” she answered. What the hell. She’d already humiliated herself once, why not go full throttle. 

The clanging of a school bells called a stop to the play wrestling. Zan shook the grass out of her fur as Sin came to check on Wolf. The fur on her back was the same golden blond as her hair, while her legs and belly were the porcelain white of her skin.

“ _Hunt’s about to start_ ,” she said, as she nudged Wolf towards the gathering further along, toward the trees. The other pups scampered with excitement to their respective packs. Zan followed a lot slower.

Everyone that had been milling around was now in their beast form. Mostly wolves, with a few big cats and the massive presence of the kodiak. It was easier to assess how many people were here now, counting just shy of 30. A lot of things were simpler, once the human disguises have been dropped. 

Warpath was waiting for them, roughly in the middle of the gathering. The others had left him space, expecting the arrival of his pack. Zan nudged at his paw until he moved, so she could sit in front on him. The dark grey of his fur around her, shielding her from the gaze of the others, and the amused rumbling of his laughter was comforting. 

“ _You know, I’ve been asked twice now what strange pup the city gave us._ ”

“ _What did you answer?_ ” 

He plopped his chin on top of her head, crushing her to himself. “ _That anyone who thinks you a pup is in for a hard awakening, Boss_.”

“ _Thanks for the vote of confidence_.”

“ _Pay attention_ ,” said Sin. “ _Logan is talking._ ” Several others were looking their way now, making Zan push back against her wolfish blanket. 

Logan was talking, in front of the group. He was sitting on his hunches, like an enormous version of a plush toy sitting on a kid’s bed, if toys got to be just shy of 6 feet tall in that position.

“ _I welcome you all to my domain_ ,” he said. “ _To those who are new here, there is but one rule. Do not maim each other. I would hate to have to kill you in return_.” He paused until the nervous laughter died down. “ _Those participating in the group hunt, follow me. Those more inclined to solitary prowling may use these grounds_.” He fell to his feet and started walking away, apparently done with ceremony. Zan liked that, the straightforward nature of it.

“ _They have a few stags, for the group hunts_ ,” said Sin. “ _Would you like to join us? It’ll be Wolf’s first hunt too._ ”

Zan shook her head. “ _No. I’d only get in your way. I’ll explore here. If they have stags for you they should also have seeded the area with prey here._ ” 

“ _As you wish_.”

“ _Call if you need us,_ ” said Warpath as he stood to follow Sin. 

“ _Don’t traumatise the locals_ ,” added Wolf. Then they were gone, melding easily into the loping run to their designated zone. The elders, movements slower from age and worn articulations, followed them, herding the pups in tangles of tails and too high pitched yips.

It was emptier in the clearing now. Not silent, just devoid of the magical hum of so many Weres gathered. Like the deafness after leaving a bar or a loud concert, without the blur of booze and bone rattling bass. She could hear the birds calling high in the trees and the loud sustained buzz of a lonely cicada. 

Zan walked into the woods with careful, measured steps. Her ears flicked at every sound, trying to pinpoint the rustle and chirps. The undergrowth was dense enough to block out the sun in patchworks of greens and golds. Large ferns unfurled in a wide tangle of soft leaves. Zan moved them until there was room for her underneath, mostly hidden, cool and dark. She curled up and closed her eyes. 

Tickling woke her up. It was warm now, radiating from the ground and for the sky, making humidity rise from the soil. Her nose was tickling. Zan blinked and tried to see what was the issue, unwilling to move just yet. She had to go cross eyed before she could focus properly. Some insect had landed on her snout. It was thin and elongated, with bright jewel toned segments that sifted from bright teal to black. Zan jerked to her paws, worried it would bite her. The thing flew away on what was probably too many wings. 

Grumbling from her stomach combined with the much shorter shadows let Zan know she’d managed to sleep to a decent hour. She would never understand what was so vivifying about rising with the sun. She stretched, working the kinks from her back and legs. She’d have to look for some food. Sin probably packed some soy cubes, but she would like to avoid asking for emergency rations. How hard could it be to forage on designated hunting grounds?

Her nose lead her to a thick bush, laden with dark skinned berries. They smelled like jam in the warmth of the day: juicy and a bit tart in ways that made her homesick for a place that had been a living nightmare. The branches were a tangle of cruel barbs and she gave up after a couple of dozen. The taste was soured by the cuts on her lips from the thorns. She licked the stains out of her fur as the wounds healed close.

A burst of white noise made her look up, but nothing looked amiss in the verdant woods. Zan narrowed her eyes and dropped to her belly, ears flicking to try and pinpoint where the noise had come from. She might be a naive city kid, but there was no insect that sounded like that, the hissy crackle of static and bad tech. The sound didn’t come again, or maybe it was covered by the rising chorus of wolf howls, victorious and gloating. Maybe one of the jammers was on the fritz. 

A soft cooing call caught her attention. Zan crawled around the bramble bush as quietly as she could. Which meant making about as much noise as a roving band of Halloweeners out on a burning spree. She gave herself points for effort nonetheless. On the other side sat the stupidest looking bird Zan had ever seen. It had tail feathers about half again the length of its whole body, striped in reds, black, and white. Those were the least colorful thing on the entire bird, somehow. The thing’s belly was a bright blood red, while its back was mostly golden yellow with a shimmering green collar. Its head was covered in layers of golden and black feathers that moved like a samurai’s helmet. 

It was a spectacular display of human interference in nature and she wanted it in her belly. 

The dichotomy left her conflicted long enough for the bird to waddle away, pecking at the ground and coming up with a large glistening beetle. Zan shuddered. She’d forgotten how everything out here was literally crawling with bugs. She eased to her paws and ran after the bird, jaw open and ready to snap at its neck. 

The bird hissed like an angry cat and puffed up. It was probably going for intimidating but it only managed to resemble an aggravated stuffed toy. Zan slowed, curious, and the thing walked further away, wings flapping twice but unable to leave the ground. She remembered reading about this practice, about gamekeepers clipping birds’ feathers to prevent flight. It made her hesitate. Was there honor in hunting a hobbled prey? A loud rumble from her stomach answered the question and she took up the chase again. Besides, she had to admit she was enjoying herself. There might have been something to all the mindfulness and “living in the now” crap that all the books of shifter lore kept extolling as a panacea. 

Zan pounced on the bird, but it was faster than she had anticipated. It flapped to one side with a loud shrill cry. It dug its talons into her paw, stronger and sharper than they seemed. Beads of blood rose to mar her fur as the infernal thing pecked at her face, narrowingly missing her eye as she jerked backwards. Emitting a stream of angry chitters the bird ran away deeper into under the low hanging pine branches. It had no chance a camouflage, but the needles acted as a deterrent. 

The third time Zan lined up for a pounce, she had to contort mid-air and landed in a confused heap with her tail falling over her eyes. Something else had jumped on her bird, something bigger than her, with larger fangs and angry eyes. Something the color of dried hay.

Something that resolved into a mountain lion, once she rolled to her feet. He crunched the bird and managed to look immensely smug as he did it, flying duvet and entrails somehow not getting in the way. 

“ _What’s wrong, city girl? Cat’s got your tongue?_ ”

“ _No. Stole my dinner, however._ ”

“ _Did I?”_ He licked his lips in a deliberate display of teeth. _“Seems like I caught the pheasant first. My kill. My meal_.”

“ _You know what I mean._ ”

“ _Do I? City folks talk with such big and fancy words. They say one thing and mean another._ ” He took a step closer to Zan, muscles rippling on his shoulders and across his flanks. “ _Barely know how to be a people, all full of poison and smoke. Tell me, city girl, how much of you is tar?_ ”

Zan backed away slowly, but the puma refused to let any space grow between them. He followed as she retreated, until her hind legs scratched against the broad trunk of an oak tree, slipping against the moss that covered the bark. There was no way she could take him in combat, not in animal form anyway. If she was human, if she had her blade and her voice she might have a chance. 

Howls, closer now, made the puma’s ears twitch. He smiled and Zan could see in his aura it really was a smirk and laced with merriment. 

“ _Go. Run to the big bad wolf and complain now, runt princess. You’re all broken mirrors and make believe. How long until he sees it too?_ ” He jumped above her, claws digging into the oak as it it was canvas and vanished amongst the canopy. 

Zan didn’t dare move. Wolf found her under that tree, fur sticking up as if she was holding one of the big static generating balls her dad had kept in his office. He nudged at her, but she wouldn’t move. Wolf left.

Warpath nuzzled at the fur between her ears. “ _Something got you spooked_.”

“ _I’m fine_ ,” Zan replied. She shook herself and tried to guess how much time had been lost in her fugue state. The light had shifted but she couldn’t have said if it had been hours or minutes.

“ _You are aware that I can see your aura, Boss?_ ”

“ _Shut up_.”

“ _Hungry?_ ”

“ _Starving. I couldn’t catch anything_.”

“ _I’m proud that you tried_.” He pushed Zan until she fell in step with him, walking easily in the span of his much longer legs.

“ _Would have gotten a pheasant_ ,” she added, relieved that she remembered the name. “ _But some rude cat ate it._ ”

“ _Want me to smack him down for you?_ ” Sin asked as she rose from her waiting spot to take Zan’s other side. Wolf circled around the adults then settled to follow a few paces behind. “ _I could issue a challenge. Wouldn’t be an issue._ ”

“ _Nah. Not worth it._ ”

“ _Arthur messed with one of my pack. Of course it’s worth it._ ”

They cleared the treeline to the main gathering area as he spoke. A large stag was being eaten, skin broken and open like the flaps of a tent as hungry mouths dug into the remaining flesh.

“ _Nevermind, I’m not hungry_ ,” said Zan, feeling nauseous at the sight. 

“ _I’ve seen you eat tartare, Boss. This is just fresher._ ”

“ _It doesn’t count. The tenderloins come vacuum sealed. It’s not the same at all._ ”

“ _If you say so._ ” Zan craned her neck up to glare at Warpath. He was shaking with silent laughter and her attempt to look irritated only made matters worse. 

The scream reached them before he could answer. A wave of chaos and panic was spreading from the far side of the gathering. Logan stood to his full height, roaring in defiance. Darts swarmed upon him, sinking into his fur in constellations of pink plastic. Zan traced their path as the bear shook off the tranquilizers. A four person team was walking into the clearing, covered in camouflage fabric and strapped with enough weapons that their aura was almost fractured by the black void of death and the red halo of violence.

“ _Bounty hunters_ ,” said Sin.

“ _The pups_ ,” answered Zan. There was no need to say more. The blond wolf leaped away, veering left towards the elders and the younglings. Wolf followed her and the lack of fear bleeding through his aura should have been heartbreaking. There was a quiet resignation in its place, laced with a sense of duty and protectiveness, all well beyond his years. To Warpath, Zan said: “ _Buy me time_ ”.

The too loud firecracker sound of live rounds being fired swallowed his answer, if he gave any. Logan roared again, in pain this time. Blood turned his fur slick and shiny, as he went down like a ton of brick. 

“What the hell, Onyx?” The voice came from behind Zan and she turned to face it. “They’re worth double alive.”

“They’re worthless if we’re all too dead to collect,” a woman answered, shifting as she took aim again and fired, sending burst of bullets that trailed the stardust sparkle of silver along with their death through the astral. “Bunsen, Burner, get the nets.”

Two man exited the undergrowth, dressed the same at all the other. Seven man team, maybe more. Zan cursed them, the fact that they were skilled enough to surround the gathering made things harder and it took all the subtle options right off the table. It wasn’t how she liked to do things but she liked being shot at and having her friends injured even less. More screams and the electric sizzles of containment nets broke her out of her hesitation. She’d have time to think and strategize on the other side, and analyse all the ways she could have done things better. Later, when there was time. Now there was only time for actions. 

The fallen stag was abandoned in the middle of the clearing, gutted and turning the ground beneath it to mud as blood pooled. She weaved and dodged to avoid those running away and those running to an assault. As she neared the stag, Zan leaped as high as she could, shifting into human form in mid air and landing on her knees with one hand sinking into the warm mud. A loud wolf whistle from one of the bounty hunters made her look up. The one that had been called Bunsen, or maybe Burner, was staring at her lewdly and whistled again.

“Man, look at that one. Who knew pets had tits that perky.”

Zan let herself snarl rather than smile as she began to sing a slow song, a wordless dirge. Something in her expression must have betrayed danger instead of youth and the leering turned to confusion and then fear. He brought up his weapon and took aim.

“Mage! Geek the mage,” he screamed at his teammates. 

Books of magic, the ones she had been told to study and the ones she had sought afterwards, all describe the world in the same broad strokes. The world like a constant, a hard-shelled seed, and around it the astral realms, many layered and shifting, filled with the spirits of nature and the elemental building blocks of reality. She had been made to learn by rote the equations to force those energies to behave, back when reaching out to the Totems had been a sure path to pain and mockery. They are false, her teacher had told her, illusions humanity built for themselves, automatons of beliefs that react blindly. It wasn’t the worst thing they had been wrong about. What was missing from the books, scrubbed or burned away, un-rediscovered in the chaotic birth of the 6th age, was the logical conclusion. If the Astral realms were made of positive energies and the physical world was neutral, universal symmetry dictated that there would be a negative energy plane as well.

Zan reached down, with her mind and her magic as she sang the sorrow of the land, the grief and the loss. The blood of the stag, its recent death, eased the way as the energies reached back at her. Where the Astral was bright overlaid colors and light the Underworld was the cool the soft strokes of ink on the scrolls of the dead and the dim lights of judging halls. She felt the pain of her physical body as the magic ripped through her, holding to her control by barely more than her fingernails, but she didn’t worry about it. It was only one more thing to deal with in the future.

The barrier between the worlds wavered and thinned, answering her call. The bounty hunter was firing at her now, but it was too late. It was way too late for him. The air shimmered at the spirit manifested around her. The bullets hit the black and green scale, smooth and burnished like jade, and then fell to the ground, harmless. It circled around Zan, forked tongue slipping in and out, tasting the air. 

“Restrain them,” she said. 

The spirit snake uncoiled to strike. It was between fifteen and twenty feet long, Zan had trouble keeping track, her vision kept clouding over. Scales covered its back and sides, but as it raised its head from the ground, she saw that no skin covered its lower torso, the ribs there bare and moving more like millipede legs than like bones. More bullets hit it, as well as some of the drug darts, each as ineffective as the last. 

The man who had leered at Zan was the first to be caught, locked against the spirits’ rippling spine by some of its ribs, like a moving cage. The fear and confusion gave the other shifters the edge they needed, pouncing with teeth and claws at the other hunters, bringing them down with minimal body count. The battle was over and still the man screamed, thin and high in raw fear. 

A wave of the hand freed the spirit, and it melded back into the ground, leaving black flecks behind like smut upon the trampled grass or dried ink. Arms were propping her up, but Zan couldn’t tell how many, or if maybe they were paws. Sounds were distorted, liquidy, as if she had gone swimming and not shaken the water from her ears. She still couldn’t see, her eyes closed and sticky, trying to open them hurt. She stopped trying and let herself fall backward into oblivion. 

It was dark when she woke up. She’d been moved, that much she knew. She was dry and the tackiness of the animal blood had been washed off her. There was a blanket beneath her skin, covered in the smooth faux-fur of artificial fabric. Warpath sat at her back, warming her.

“Think you went a bit overboard, Boss?”

“Didn’t have time to finesse it.” 

Zan opened her eyes, scrubbing at them with the back of her hand. They felt sore and raw. She tilted her head gingerly, but apparently the blood had cleared from her ears.

“Casualties?”

“Wounded, on our side, some pretty badly. Two dead on theirs. The rest are in custody. Rangers just left with them. They were very interested in knowing who hired bounty hunters on Salish lands.” 

She nodded and, when that didn’t immediately made her want to puke, pushed herself up so she was sitting. “The others?”

“ _There was some confusion as the hunters were attacked by a force they couldn’t see in the Astral and couldn’t smell. I’ve sorted them out._ ” Sin nuzzled against Zan’s neck and hair. “ _They won’t trouble you_. _You worried me.”_

Zan groaned. She hadn’t thought about how unnatural her magic would look to the Were, as they always saw the world and the Astral realms overlaid and inseparable. “I’m sorry. It seemed like a good idea at the time.” her stomach interrupted her, as it gurgled angrily. “Think they have any more of those pretty birds?” 

Sin laughed. “ _As many as you want. I think I saw a peacock in one of the cages. How about we set that up, for you to hunt_?”

“I’d like that,” said Zan. “They have talons right?”

“ _And sharp beaks. Very little meat, for the trouble. Would you want help?_ ” asked Warpath.

“No. I think I can catch it. What’s the worst that can happen? A mouthful of feathers?”

They laughed and she let herself slip back into her fox-fur. For the first time since she was a child, she did it without fear, without second thought. She went to hunt, under the rising moon. Her pack ran alongside her, howling and calling, but they trusted her skills when she did not. Beneath one of the bushes Zan could have sworn she saw green eyes, glowing, familiar. When she turned, they were gone, replaced by the honey gold of the wolves. It didn’t matter. They were family too. 


End file.
